their car is grounded for a while, it’s very inconvenient for them—very. That’s where you come in. You are a mechanic, aren’t you?”
Charlie nodded.
“Then it’ll be simple,” said Hector. “You go and take something out of the car—some important piece. You immobilise them. That’s why I’m giving you this great opportunity, Charlie. I know you’re a mechanic, and so you can do this sort of thing.”
Charlie’s eyes widened.
“You remove the distributor or something,” Hector continued. “Maybe one or two of its wheels. Or you make sure the car won’t start. And then they realise that we mean business, and you won’t see them for dust—running around to make sure they pay us back and get their cars going again. Simple. Everybody’s happy—or, at least, we’re happy; they may not be.”
Charlie stared at Hector open-mouthed. “You want me to sabotage their cars?” he asked. “Is that what you want?”
“You could put it that way, Charlie,” said Hector. “But remember: You’re the one who needs the money. You’re the one who wants to get married to my sister. All that I’m doing is making it possible for you. You work for me, and I’ll give you the money to give to the old man.” He smiled. “Simple, you see. You should say, ‘Thank you, Hector.’ That’s what you should say, Charlie, my friend!”
Charlie mumbled something. It was possibly thank you, possibly not.
CHAPTER TEN
AND WHAT WAS THERE TO REGRET?
IT WAS HIGH TIME, thought Mma Ramotswe, to visit her old friend, Mma Potokwane, matron, stalwart defender of orphans and other poor children, and maker of fruit cake—from a famous and unfathomable recipe. It was not that fruit cake was topmost in Mma Ramotswe’s mind when she made the decision to travel out to Tlokweng—any friendship based on considerations of appetite would be a shallow friendship indeed—but one could not ignore the role that mutual enjoyment of food played in the enjoyment of human company. Mma Ramotswe was a stout defender of the idea that a family should eat together, and insisted on this in her own home, even if she and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni often had to have dinner later than the two foster children because he was late back from the garage. On such occasions, she would feed Motholeli and Puso first, yet would always sit down with them at the table, even if she would be having her own dinner a bit later. And if she treated herself to a small helping of what was being served to them, then that was done out of respect for her own rule about eating together. And there was another rule at play here—the rule that stated that food prepared for children was almost always tastier than the food cooked for oneself. It simply was. How many parents, then, found themselves hovering over their children’s plates, ready to swoop on any surplus or rejected morsel or, worse still, ready to sneak something off the plate while the child was looking in the other direction, or arguing with a brother or sister, or possibly having a tantrum. The closing of eyes that went with a tantrum could be especially useful in this respect; when the child came to his or her senses, the quantity on the plate may have been significantly reduced, thus providing the child who noticed it with a sharp lesson in the consequences of bad behaviour. Make a fuss, and your food will be eaten by somebody else: a sound proposition that Mma Ramotswe believed could be applied with equal force to many other situations.
She had not seen Mma Potokwane for some time, and as she drove along the corrugated dirt road that led to the Orphan Farm, a cloud of dust thrown up behind her white van like the vapour trail of a high-flying aircraft, she thought of the last occasion on which she and her friend had sat down together and had one of their wide-ranging conversations. They had talked about so much that a great deal of it was now forgotten, although a few topics remained in her mind.
There had been a discussion about Mma Makutsi and her latest doings. Mma Potokwane and Mma Makutsi had not always had the easiest of relationships in the past, both being women of strong personality and confirmed views. That had changed for the better, and now they enjoyed civil relations, even if they did not always see eye to eye in quite the same way as did Mma Ramotswe and Mma